


The Grey in this City is Too Much to Bear

by synchronicities



Series: an atlas o' clouds (bellarke fusions) [9]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Catching Fire AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronicities/pseuds/synchronicities
Summary: A thousand and one words bubble up in her throat – how the Capitol creeps up on District 12, insidious and suffocating. How the Games have changed Wells and Raven, and Clarke feels too insignificant and helpless to do anything of significance for them except things like this. How Bellamy, vulnerable and quiet in his small cot in a way that he never shows in public, holding Clarke’s hand – she feels like that’s something worth fighting for, too.“Can’t have you dying on me,” she says instead, and that makes him smile and duck his head. The sight thrills her in a strange way; the moment feels precious, like something she’d want to save.--The Games don't end in the arena. Clarke and Bellamy's best friends know that better than anyone.





	The Grey in this City is Too Much to Bear

**Author's Note:**

> Bellarke as Everlark has my heart always, but you know what’s interesting? Bellarke basically look like what i imagine Gale/Madge would look like. Also, this is LITERALLY a 3-year-old WIP that I found in my drafts and had to push myself to finish...... and I also only barely remember the plot of THG and CF.... so I blustered my way through like 3k of this fusion, so 4give me 4 da quality lol xoxox. 
> 
> Title [from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGGsfH607Pw) the peerless Laura Marling.

Clarke’s hands won’t stop shaking.

Bellamy quieted down after a dose of morphine, but his screaming still echoes in Clarke’s ears long after he had slipped into unconsciousness. She sits in the little chair by his bed, watches the sleeping line of his body, and wonders just how this had all come about, until there’s a knock at the door.

There are very few people who would visit her or Bellamy so late in the day, and Clarke’s hunch is proven correct when she opens the door to see Raven and Octavia. The younger girl has withdrawn into herself, staring up at Clarke with wide blue eyes. Raven’s gaze is closed off, her mouth drawn in a firm line. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Clarke says, then moves to let them pass. Raven has never been the type to be hindered.

“Will he be all right?” Octavia asks softly.

Clarke nods. She ushers Octavia into the little closet-sized room they keep for when patients need their observation and leaves them be. She closes the door behind her and turns to face Raven, who’s still standing in the living room, her arms crossed. The lash that had violently bloomed across her face when she stepped in front of the whip for Bellamy earlier is already gone, Raven’s skin now as smooth and untouched as it had been after the Games. Clarke alternately praises and curses the medical care the Capitol gives Raven, while the rest of District Twelve struggles with what Clarke and her mother can spare.

“I was wondering if you and Abby could take her,” Raven starts, voice clipped. “I would, it’s just me and my mom in the Victor’s Village house, but –Bell–” Here Raven’s flawless composure wavers and Clarke sees a glimpse of the girl she would eat lunch with at school, the girl in whose hands Clarke had hurriedly pushed the Mockingjay pin – angry, frustrated, but deathly loyal. Raven glances around Clarke’s small living room, inclining that they shouldn’t talk about it out loud. “It’s best that she stays with you,” Raven finally says.

Clarke nods in acknowledgement. “My mom won’t mind. She’ll be fine sleeping in my bed?”

Raven nods, before jerkily turning to leave. “Thanks.”

Clarke thinks of Bellamy and Raven, similarly dark and surly, but who trust each other so intimately, and her heart stings with both envy and curiosity. “You’re not going to see him?”

“I can’t,” Raven snaps, and Clarke’s blood runs cold.

* * *

Octavia is a fitful sleeper, and Clarke finds herself awake again in the early hours of the morning. She goes to their living room to find her mother coming out of Bellamy’s. Abigail Griffin looks exhausted, bags under her eyes and a crease in her brow. “He’s not awake yet,” Abby says, in response to Clarke’s unspoken question.

“I didn’t hear you come in last night,” Clarke says. 

“You mustn’t have,” Abby replies. “After Bellamy got lashed, there was something of a commotion. Many people were hurt.”

“I see.” They’re back to these short, clipped conversations. Clarke doesn’t ask if Abby had been away treating the Seam kids who had gotten in danger on Bellamy’s behalf, or the Peacekeepers who had harmed them. Perhaps it’s better that she doesn’t know. “Octavia’s in my bedroom. Raven didn’t want her away from Bellamy, and she couldn’t take her.”

Abby nods, short and perfunctory. “All right. She can stay with us until her brother gets better.” Her eyes slide again to Bellamy’s door. “But _only_ until he gets better. Today or tomorrow.” Her voice drops. “Clarke, keeping the Blakes here – you know how this will look.”

Bile rises in Clarke’s throat, and just as instantaneously, things she can use to wound her mother – _Haven’t we gotten enough good will after Dad died so the Capitol could save face? Didn’t Callie’s death teach you anything? How much longer are we going to pretend everything is_ fine _for us?_

But instead Abby moves to make breakfast, and Clarke doesn’t say anything at all.

* * *

“He wants to see you,” Octavia says, coming out of the room, and Clarke startles. She hadn’t been inside since he woke up a few hours ago and she’d sent Octavia to his bedside, but hasn’t quite been able to stop busying herself around the house, anxiously hovering by the doorway.

“Princess,” Bellamy greets when she enters, his voice hoarse from disuse. He’s sitting up, his hands periodically wrinkling the sheets. “Heard you patched me up.”

Emotion flares up within her. “You’re welcome,” she replies, but there’s little heat behind it. How is she supposed to react when seeing him on the small cot evokes memories of his screams, how his body crumbled from each time the whip came down, how Clarke had had to hold Octavia close and pull her away from the crowd?

“Fuck, I hope someone got to eat that pheasant.” Bellamy huffs, smiles a little mirthlessly, a little mean. “Forty fucking lashes for one lousy bird. If it was that new Peacekeeper, Dax or whoever the fuck, I hope–”

“ _Bellamy_.” Clarke’s hand darts out to touch his knee, and he twitches at the contact. “Don’t. It’s not worth it.” Not worth the danger, not worth the pain, not worth Octavia’s quivering or Raven’s hurt stare.

For the first time since this whole ordeal, Bellamy looks defeated. Even when taking the lashes, he had been defiant, anger smoldering in his gaze, and he had cursed Clarke’s ear off as she had cleaned his wounds. But now he’s just quiet, accepting.

“Has Raven been by?” he asks instead, his hand moving to his knee to interlace their fingers. Clarke watches the gesture and doesn’t pull away. Not for the first time, she wonders about their relationship.

She nods. “To drop off Octavia. She said…it was probably best if she didn’t stay.”

Bellamy draws in a harsh breath. “I see.” He clears his throat. “I mean it,” he says, voice soft. “Thank you, Clarke. For patching up my busted ass, for taking in Octavia…”

A thousand and one words bubble up in her throat – how it feels to be helping them, under her mother’s disapproving eye and Dax’s distaste. How the Capitol creeps up on District 12, insidious and suffocating. How the Games have changed Wells and Raven, and Clarke feels too insignificant and helpless to do anything of significance for them except things like this. How on top of that, Bellamy’s screaming as she had treated him had rooted hatred against the Capitol even deeper in her gut. How relief had broken Octavia’s face wide open when Clarke had told her Bellamy would live. And now how Bellamy, vulnerable and quiet in his small cot in a way that he never shows in public, holding Clarke’s hand – she feels like that’s something worth fighting for, too.

“Can’t have you dying on me,” she says instead, and that makes him smile and duck his head. The sight thrills her in a strange way; the moment feels precious, like something she’d want to save.

Octavia and Bellamy go home the next day. Bellamy bristles when Clarke sends them home with two days’ worth of her breakfast rations, but doesn’t say anything. Raven only hugs her fiercely the next time they see each other.

* * *

The Griffins are in good standing – Abby tries her hardest to keep it that way. For all Clarke resents her mother for it, she appreciates how it means the Peacekeepers let her pass without a second thought when she arrives at the Victor’s Village, head held high, announcing that she wanted to see her best friend.

The size of the Jahas’ new home always surprises her. The house the Capitol afforded Thelonius as the mayor wasn’t even a quarter of the size of this mansion, and gazing at the darkened upstairs rooms, it pains her to think of Wells and Thelonius as the only two people living in it. Wells had offered to have Clarke and Abby live with them as well, but Clarke had refused. Her mother won’t want to leave their house, and something about the Victor’s Village has never felt right.

Wells is alone in the house when she arrives, and he ushers her in quickly. The first thing he asks is if Bellamy is all right.

“He’ll live,” Clarke replies, and relief floods Wells’s face. He is really too good for all this.

“I don’t know what Raven would have done if he’d died,” he admits, looking a little lost, before his gaze sharpens, his guard up again.

“She’d have blamed herself. The way she did when Finn died.”

Wells doesn’t dispute it. He glances at her before visibly psyching himself up to admit something, and Clarke nods to let him know she’s listening. “President Wallace prefers things to be…a certain way,” he says delicately, his eyes darting around the room. Not even the Victors are safe from the Capitol’s machinations.

Clarke takes his hands in hers like they had done since they were children. Wells had comforted her with these hands, had shared food and pulled her hair. But his raw strength had also won him and Raven the Games, and the thought of all the blood he must be carrying saddens her. Her best friend isn’t the same person who left District 12 on a train, and both of them know it. “Is it why Dax went after Bellamy?”

Wells only exhales, long and slow, and Clarke feels the realization settle in her stomach. The starcrossed lovers act Wells had started, the stricken look on Raven’s face as she held the poisonous berries to him, arm outstretched, the legions of Capitol fans who swoon over their fabrication. Raven’s icy _I can’t_ , Bellamy’s hesitation. “She wouldn’t talk to me about it,” she admits. “I’d hoped she’d brought it up with you.”

“No,” her oldest friend says. “But it’s Bellamy. She was shaken.” Wells pulls his hands from hers. “I’d bet we’re thinking the same thing. There’s no point in running, Clarke. They have us at gunpoint, all the time, and it’s all I can do to keep looking out for her.”

“You really, truly love her,” Clarke realizes, and her heart clenches when Wells nods. She glances out the window to Raven’s similarly large house across the street, where the lights are off and the shades are closed.

* * *

Raven hugs her when Clarke drops by next, three or so days after she visits Wells. “Thank you,” Raven whispers, just as Clarke recovers from the surprise of Raven’s arms around her. Their friendship has never been the most physically intimate. “Come on in.”

“How have you been?” Clarke asks.

“Better,” Raven grumbles. She looks tired, has looked tired since she and Wells returned from the arena, as much as the Capitol celebrated them and lauded their achievements, and Clarke, again, wants nothing more than to smooth the lines off their faces, let them believe that everything will be all right.

But the Games don’t end in the arena. Raven and Wells know that better than almost anyone.

Raven is similarly contemplative. She looks up at Clarke. “But I’m tired of talking about that. How’s the clinic been, Griffin?”

Clarke gets the cue, and she launches into a story about the miners whose cough her mother has been treating. Raven listens and nods along, but Clarke can tell that her guard’s not down, either.

She hugs her again when Clarke leaves. “I’m going to kill them for it,” Raven mutters into Clarke’s ear, and the words are a shock to Clarke’s system. _They have us at gunpoint_ , Wells had said. “They deserve it, Clarke. Wallace, everyone. They deserve to go down.”

Perhaps uncannily, the Capitol announces the criterion for the Quarter Quell Reaping that evening. The tributes will only be drawn from the pool of living Victors.

Reportedly, Kane and Bellamy had had to restrain Raven, who had thrashed and screamed and cried as the announcement was read.

Clarke only feels hollow. The worst should have past. Wells and Raven should have had the rest of their lives in slowly strengthening peace. So she goes again to the Jahas’ new home in the Victor’s Village to find Wells on the couch, a bottle of Kane’s finest whiskey in front of him, and curls around him.

“Between the two of us, Raven has to get out,” is all Wells says.

He’s too good. Clarke doesn’t say that she needs him to live, even as the thought sickens her.

The Reaping results a week later surprise no one. Kane is drawn, but Wells volunteers in his place. On the podium, Raven’s face is an impassive mask. The two of them are going back into the arena.

Nobody cheers. Clarke waits until she gets home to cry.

* * *

Clarke goes to say goodbye to both Raven and Wells again this time. Raven’s mother doesn’t show, hasn’t been seen in public since the announcement was made, and so Clarke doesn’t press. It’s her, Bellamy, Octavia, and Jaha in the waiting room and they go in one at a time. Bellamy and Octavia come out looking as overwhelmed as Clarke feels.

“I love you. Please take care of each other,” is all she can bear to say to either of them when it’s her turn to say goodbye, because the truth has been creeping its way into her bones since the Reaping – there is no chance she’ll see both of them again.

Wells goes to hug her first. “Clarke,” he says, voice thick with unshed tears. He was always the more emotive one. “You – I – you deserve so much, you know?”

Her palm reaches up to cup his cheek. He’s crying now. “So do you, Wells,” she says, thumbing at his tears before pulling away and turning to Raven. This time they don’t say anything; they just hold each other as the mockingjay pin gleams in the station light.

Jaha takes Octavia home. Bellamy and Clarke quietly walk home from the station together. Wordlessly, Bellamy raises his arm in invitation and Clarke slots herself under it, letting the steady motion of Bellamy’s walking put her at peace.

* * *

“I wanted to ask you about the mockingjay,” Bellamy says. They’re in the woods past District 12, Bellamy having found another Peacekeeper willing to turn a blind eye to people sneaking out to gather meat and herbs. Clarke has come with him; they’re running dangerously low on antibacterial plants, and the increasingly delayed shipments haven’t been helping. The districts are restless. Something is going to happen.

“What about it?” she asks. She and Bellamy have been growing closer since his convalescence, and it’s an attraction she lets herself feel with a twinge of guilt. She can’t have Bellamy smiling at her from across the marketplace while her mother watches disdainfully, while Wells and Raven continue to play the expectant couple, continue to risk their lives in the pointlessness of the Games.

But she does. She has him now, too, sun-drenched and strong, handsome as he readies his bow and arrow, and she steals glances at his back while she gathers the plants she needs.

Bellamy cocks his head, listens for sounds, and when he hears nothing he turns back to her. “Why did you give the pin to Raven, of all things?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Clarke’s hand pause. “You ever hear about Callie Cartwig?”

Bellamy’s face indicates that he has. “She was Kane’s district partner in his games. She sacrificed herself for him.”

She nods. “She was my mother’s best friend.” At that, Bellamy draws in a breath, and she continues. “I think my mom never thought much of Kane because she thought – if anyone deserved to make it out of those games, it was Callie. Instead, she sacrificed herself for Kane, and my mom got a bunch of her stuff instead. The pin was hers.” Clarke fiddles with her hands pensively, glances around the forest. “Callie was an only child, and her family was in good standing, but her parents died after that Quarter Quell. My mom would always go like, _it doesn’t matter how much they like you now, it could all go away just like that_ , and that’s why she never makes much noise. But Callie, she deserved to be remembered, you know? She deserved to make an impact. Even if it was twenty-five years too late.” She stops talking. Her hands are trembling again.

Bellamy’s looking at her, gaze stormy.

Then he kisses her.

Clarke stiffens before sighing against his mouth, her hands roaming all over him. She prays that the forest will swallow their happiness, keep it a secret.

But then Luna Rivers says to Raven, _“You’re the mockingjay_.” The forcefield shatters, and Raven Reyes is lifted into a helicopter. The broadcast shorts out, and the nation breaks into a commotion.

The bombs fall on District 12 two days later.

* * *

Clarke comes to with Bellamy’s arms around her body. He’s stirring; the motion wakes her up, and she turns around to face his half-awake form.

“Another day,” she murmurs, tracing the lines of his face with her fingertips. These small, stolen moments are usually all they have time for, but she loves them anyway – Bellamy, loose and free and smiling up at her, before the reality of their situation sets in and it all falls away.

“Another day,” he whispers back just as softly. The grief and despair in his eyes return, and Clarke doesn’t know what to say.

They go out to face the camp together. Five hundred survivors huddle in makeshift tents, getting by with whatever scraps they could scavenge from what was left of District 12 and whatever food the hunting and scouting parties could bring back. Ironic, how they now get by on something the Peacekeepers had punished them for.

Five hundred, when their District was so large and bustling. This is all that’s left.

She and Bellamy go their separate ways for the day – Bellamy, to coordinate with the other experienced poachers, and Clarke, to their makeshift clinic. Two weeks after the bombs flattened District 12 and there are still so many injuries – burns, broken limbs, hunting accidents – that Clarke is often too exhausted to mourn those they’ve lost.

Jaha, caught in the fire that razed the mayor’s office. The Lemkins, who ran the bakery. Sienne and her son, who had both worked in the mines. Vera Kane, who had run the local school for the last five decades.

Her mother.

The thought is raw enough to make her knees buckle, so Clarke sucks in a breath and turns her attention back to her current patient. Fox’s severe burns from the bombs are enough to keep her occupied until Octavia blusters into the tent, her long hair swirling behind her.

“Clarke,” she calls out. “You’ll want to see this.”

“There’s a group who found me and Monroe in the woods,” she explains later as Clarke briskly walks alongside her. “She asked if we were from District 12, and when we said we were, she asked to see our leader.” She pauses, fiddles with her fingers. “I thought – given everything, that would have been you and Bell, since you guys have been keeping this whole thing running…”

At once, the weight hits Clarke like a truck – the faith Octavia has in her and Bellamy, the number of lives she’s now apparently considered responsible for. But then she sees Bellamy standing in the center of camp, facing a woman flanked by guards, and she steels herself, sidling up next to him easily.

“You must be Clarke Griffin,” the woman says. She’s polished and beautiful in a way no one outside the Capitol is, and something about her makes Clarke’s hackles rise.

“I am,” she says, not giving anything else away.

The woman smiles, all teeth. “My name is Alie Lucis,” she begins. “I am the President of District 13. And I’d like to make you an offer.”

* * *

Raven convalesces in the District 13 medical center, a bright, clean place that smells nauseatingly of antiseptic. Clarke watches the victors who had rescued Raven filter in and out – fatherly Sinclair, intimidatingly serene Luna, swaggering Roan. Since District 13 had taken them in and revealed Raven's unconscious body, Bellamy has barely left her side. Clarke comes in every few hours to lean her head on his shoulder and pass him sips of water. She thinks of how, just weeks ago, it had been him in this position.

She glances at him. Exhaustion seeps from his every muscle, but she knows him well enough to know that he’s not leaving until Raven awakens, and she loves him for it.

Clarke is on one such visit when Raven comes to, jolting awake, and Bellamy bolts out of his seat. “ _Raven_ ,” he says, then whirls towards Clarke. “Get Kane.”

She does so, and the two of them return to Raven’s room to find her clutching Bellamy’s arm, panicked. “Fuck, Bellamy – the arena – Wells! Where am I?”

“Raven,” Bellamy starts. He glances at Clarke, and she nods back, her heart breaking all over again. “There is no District 12.”

Raven’s face falls, and Bellamy looks back at Clarke once again.

They have a lot to do, but hope curls desperately in her gut anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> madge :((((
> 
> I have NO plans of continuing this jsykkkk sorry! But obvi I am weak and prone to fix-its, so just know that alie and wallace choke, wellven and bellarke live semi-happily ever after, and braven’s relationship remains Good. luna-as-johanna lives, im 50-50 on roan-as-finnick surviving, it’s up to u tbh
> 
> comment! leave kudos!


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